


Where things that don't match meet

by heavenisalibrary



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 02:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I cooked you breakfast,” he says, smiling half-heartedly and giving a sad little shrug. He’s got a bit of ash on his forehead where his eyebrows ought to be, and she has to try very hard not to laugh at him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where things that don't match meet

**Author's Note:**

> Short, drabble-ish. The Doctor cooks (or doesn't.)

There’s stacks of pancakes, burned and black, piled onto plates all along the counter, a bowl and whisk still sticky with batter sitting aslant in the sink. There’s sticks of thick French Toast that looks more like charcoal, and a pan of eggs that may still yet be on fire. River smells bacon, but the moment she sees it — half cooked, twisted, and inexplicably tinged green — she instantly wants nothing to do with it. There’s smoke coming from her toaster and her microwave, trailing in thin tendrils out the window flung open over the sink. The curtains waft in the crisp, morning breeze, and she tries not to cringe when she sees that they’ve been singed, and has to work even harder to school her face into impassivity when she notices the cinnamon buns drizzled with ash and icing in the open oven. There’s a slew of destroyed oranges in the rubbish bin.

She takes a moment before stepping any further into her kitchen to take a deep breath. She pulls her hair into a ponytail and adjusts the hem of her pajama shorts, takes another breath, and steps into the apparent warzone. It’s even worse close up, and River is moments away from shouting at her idiot husband when she spots him. He’s standing with his back to her, his hair sticking up at odd angles, no doubt from him tugging anxiously at it. There’s flour all over his pajama bottoms, and a bit filtered through his hair, as though he’s gone grey from the experience. He leans over the kitchen table, and she hears the clink of tea cups and him muttering quietly to himself.

When he finally turns around to face her, clutching two tea cups and looking totally frazzled, she can’t help but let all of her anger drain out of her. The Doctor can bring down armies with a word, inspire humans to the greatest heights with a wink, and spin a world on its axis with the flick of a wrist — yet leave him alone in the kitchen for a few hours, and everything goes to hell.

This is now and has always been her favorite version of her husband — oh, of course she loves all the running around, sexy catsuits and life-threatening escapades and explosives and banter, but after the smoke clears, and she can put her gun on her nightstand and leave her psychic paper closed in a desk drawer and hole up for however their mutually short patiences will allow she finds she likes him best. She likes to see the side of him that others don’t.

She likes to watch him traipse around in his socks, or watch him stumble into bed in his altogether. She likes what his hair looks like, soft and wet and mussed from a shower, and loves the taste of him right after he’s brushes his teeth. She loves knowing that he takes his tea with three lumps of sugar, and loves knowing the kinds of wine he’ll drink and the sort of hot chocolate that makes his eyes light up. She likes the butterfly-press of his lips against the back of her neck when he snuggles closer into her, and loves how his long, bandy limbs look folded up beneath him when he sits on the floor, resting his head on her lap and letting her run her fingers through his hair. 

She loves this version of the Doctor. The one she imagines — were things different, were they different — would have shyly asked her out after meeting her and wooed her slowly with odd, spirited dates and stolen kisses in strange places she’d never have thought to go, the man who she could’ve married in a normal ceremony and settled down with in a strangely colored house on a windy road. She doesn’t want any of that, of course, even though he asks her sometimes; she never lies to him, in that way. Sometimes she imagines what life could’ve been like for them, average and content, but she always reminds him that contentedness isn’t happiness, and average is boring. She wants the life they have. But she likes stealing these moments, too.

“I cooked you breakfast,” he says, smiling half-heartedly and giving a sad little shrug. He’s got a bit of ash on his forehead where his eyebrows ought to be, and she has to try very hard not to laugh at him.

“So you did,” she says, reaching out to accept the mug of tea he offers her. He looks around them, and silence yawns between them, pressing up against the laughter she’s trying so hard to keep inside.

“Best not eat it,” he says at last. 

She laughs all the way to the diner down the road, where she requests a table as far away from the kitchen as possible to ward off the possible effects of his proximity.


End file.
